SBD-3 production is wrong

[Swenslim]

And where do you get 70 skill pilots ??? In my game in early 1943 most of my reinforcement in active squadrons are 35 skill pilots.
 
It is very uncomfortable to manage reserve pilots who have some Manchuko training because you dont see IJN or IJA pilot you chose, so you need to push dozens of times before you get reserve pilot into squadron.

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: herwin

See this xkcd cartoon.

One of my favourites [:)]

[TheElf]

ORIGINAL: JWE

ORIGINAL: che200
JWE personally i think we have to have at least a mod where the data errors in the Game are updated, or we can have an data update for new games so at least we could have better scenarios. I know that it could create problems for ongoing games but it could be an update which only people who are going to start new games would use. In my game vs the AI i edited these data errors but it would be easier if we know which are the data errors instead of editing each time.

So what's to stop ya'll from making one?

It's not a data error, it's a difference of opinion and, frankly, I'll listen to Mr timtom above any collection of other people, as regards opinion. This man's sources, analyses, and game integrations are cleaner than anything I have seen anywhere else. I have learned to trust his judgment implicitly.

I have supported many tweaks, some of them unpopular, but I don't don't support this one. Sorry, but my vote is no.

Ditto...

[bklooste]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: FatR

ORIGINAL: castor troy
there for example? [:D]

The total number of IJNAF pilots that entered various training programs in 1937-45 was over 240 thousands. Yes, most of these are late-war pilots who haven't completed their training or were trained inadequately, but so are trash pilots the in-game training program gives you (even in early 1942).

yeah, what Japan in real life mostly put into their squadrons from mid 43 on would be probably something like skill 35 in the game, while in the game you put skill 70 into the squadrons, and a skill 70 pilot isn´t twice as good as a skill 35, he´s probably three or four times as good. Or do you want to tell me that you put the pilots from the replacement pool into your frontline units? I guess you train them two months and put them as skill 70 into the units...

The Japanese will only put them into the front line if he is forced to by attrition and is required to commit the forces , likewise for allied players. Also a quite 41 early 42 spells big trouble for Japan in late 42 due to the experienced allied pilots he then faces
.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: Swenslim

And where do you get 70 skill pilots ??? In my game in early 1943 most of my reinforcement in active squadrons are 35 skill pilots.

It is very uncomfortable to manage reserve pilots who have some Manchuko training because you dont see IJN or IJA pilot you chose, so you need to push dozens of times before you get reserve pilot into squadron.

If Japanese pilot training isn´t completely different from the Allied one, then it takes two months on average of on map training and you´ve pushed a skill 35 to 70 skill pilot. That´s where you get them from. And while you find it uncomfortable to do Japanese training with IJN and IJA pilots (2 different services), the Allied player has to do the same with

USAAF
USN
USMC
British
Canadian
Indian
Chinese
Soviet
Dutch
New Zealand
Australian

pilots, which means 11 services. Does that sound more uncomfortable? Not to talk about the fact that the Allied have smaller squadrons.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: bklooste

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: FatR


The total number of IJNAF pilots that entered various training programs in 1937-45 was over 240 thousands. Yes, most of these are late-war pilots who haven't completed their training or were trained inadequately, but so are trash pilots the in-game training program gives you (even in early 1942).

yeah, what Japan in real life mostly put into their squadrons from mid 43 on would be probably something like skill 35 in the game, while in the game you put skill 70 into the squadrons, and a skill 70 pilot isn´t twice as good as a skill 35, he´s probably three or four times as good. Or do you want to tell me that you put the pilots from the replacement pool into your frontline units? I guess you train them two months and put them as skill 70 into the units...

The Japanese will only put them into the front line if he is forced to by attrition and is required to commit the forces , likewise for allied players. Also a quite 41 early 42 spells big trouble for Japan in late 42 due to the experienced allied pilots he then faces
.

which should be quite difficult I guess when the Japanese train nearly 13000 pilots a year. That means you have to shoot down something like 15-18000 aircraft to kill those pilots.

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: castor troy
If Japanese pilot training isn´t completely different from the Allied one, then it takes two months on average of on map training and you´ve pushed a skill 35 to 70 skill pilot.

And Allied training squadrons severely outnumber Japanese ones by early autumn of 1942. About three to one if we talk about fighter squadrons. Bomber squadrons are relatively sparce, but Allied bomber pilots do not die in droves every time they meet a half-dozen of enemy fighters. So yes, Allied training pilot is completely different. In its capacity.

ORIGINAL: castor troy
That´s where you get them from. And while you find it uncomfortable to do Japanese training with IJN and IJA pilots (2 different services), the Allied player has to do the same with

USAAF
USN
USMC
British
Canadian
Indian
Chinese
Soviet
Dutch
New Zealand
Australian

pilots, which means 11 services. Does that sound more uncomfortable?

No, it doesn't, see above. Besides USN and USMC are not different services. They use the same plane pools and I'm pretty sure they use the same pilot pools.

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: Bradley7735
If you think PDU ON is equally beneficial to both sides, then you're smoking something. Is it nice for the Allied player? sure. But, it's about a factor of 10 less in importance when you can't change the types of planes you're producing.

Only if you don't know how to use it or, conversely, so incredibly good at micromanagement and forward planning, that it doesn't matter much, but I, somehow, don't see any of the known great Allied players among the usual complainer crowd.

ORIGINAL: Bradley7735
And, Japan has 2 "countries" or nationalities to constrain him. Allies have at least 12 "countries", several of them don't even produce planes to have a choice in upgrades (Marines and India come to mind.)

Marines use the same pools as USN.

ORIGINAL: Bradley7735
Want to have a decent Dutch fighter in 42? tough.

They get Hurricanes normally, and Hurricanes are the kings of air combat. Also, try making them survive to March of 1942, one day.

[SuluSea]

ORIGINAL: FatR

No, it doesn't, see above. Besides USN and USMC are not different services. They use the same plane pools and I'm pretty sure they use the same pilot pools.

Wrong, They do not use the same pilot pools, nor are USMC and USAAF pilots from the same pools.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: FatR

ORIGINAL: castor troy
If Japanese pilot training isn´t completely different from the Allied one, then it takes two months on average of on map training and you´ve pushed a skill 35 to 70 skill pilot.

And Allied training squadrons severely outnumber Japanese ones by early autumn of 1942. About three to one if we talk about fighter squadrons. Bomber squadrons are relatively sparce, but Allied bomber pilots do not die in droves every time they meet a half-dozen of enemy fighters. So yes, Allied training pilot is completely different. In its capacity.

ORIGINAL: castor troy
That´s where you get them from. And while you find it uncomfortable to do Japanese training with IJN and IJA pilots (2 different services), the Allied player has to do the same with

USAAF
USN
USMC
British
Canadian
Indian
Chinese
Soviet
Dutch
New Zealand
Australian

pilots, which means 11 services. Does that sound more uncomfortable?

No, it doesn't, see above. Besides USN and USMC are not different services. They use the same plane pools and I'm pretty sure they use the same pilot pools.

just because you are pretty sure unfortunetely doesn´t mean it is like this. There are different pilot pools for USN and USMC.

There´s no need for the Allied to have three times more "training squadrons" than the Japanese (that can create monster sized groups btw) because the Allied don´t have aircraft to put those pilots in in the time frame you talk about. They certainly have from mid 44 on though.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: FatR

ORIGINAL: Bradley7735
If you think PDU ON is equally beneficial to both sides, then you're smoking something. Is it nice for the Allied player? sure. But, it's about a factor of 10 less in importance when you can't change the types of planes you're producing.

Only if you don't know how to use it or, conversely, so incredibly good at micromanagement and forward planning, that it doesn't matter much, but I, somehow, don't see any of the known great Allied players among the usual complainer crowd.

ORIGINAL: Bradley7735
And, Japan has 2 "countries" or nationalities to constrain him. Allies have at least 12 "countries", several of them don't even produce planes to have a choice in upgrades (Marines and India come to mind.)

Marines use the same pools as USN.

ORIGINAL: Bradley7735
Want to have a decent Dutch fighter in 42? tough.

They get Hurricanes normally, and Hurricanes are the kings of air combat. Also, try making them survive to March of 1942, one day.

you don´t have to be a great Allied player to see and accept that the Japanese in the game still are far from what the Japanese were in real life and I´m saying this as a JFB. Fact is that one carrier engagement can completely drain the Allied´s SBD replacement for something like a year for example while taking down 250 IJAAF bombers mostly will only result in "click" production doubled, will have replaced my losses (including pilots of course) in two months.

And no matter what great Allied player you are, that won´t change the fact that a Hurricane flies lower than a Tojo and will therefore lose against a Tojo sweep in pretty horrible kill ratios, but that´s another issue.

If you say Hurricanes are the kings of air combat I wonder if you are a god like Allied player or the worst Japanese player. Want to see the kill rates of my Lightnings on 39000ft sweeps? They must be the king´s father then...

[bradfordkay]

With PDU off, the dutch get only one squadron that upgrades to the Hurri IIbTrop. That's hardly a war winner. 

[Bradley7735]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

With PDU off, the dutch get only one squadron that upgrades to the Hurri IIbTrop. That's hardly a war winner. 

Yeah, but by 43, assuming you saved all the squadrons, those Dutch groups are still worthless. They can't upgrade to any other plane. PDU on or off, those Dutch groups are worthless after mid-42. Now, if you could upgrade them to P-38's, P-47's, Spitfires, etc. then PDU On for Allies starts to get a little better. The same is true for the bomber groups. They're obsolete by late 42 and no choices for upgrades regardless of PDU on or off.

That's why PDU on is not that great of a benefit to the Allies. You're limited to choices because of static production and 11 or 12 nationalities.

PDU on is a HUGE benefit to Japan. Choice of changing production and only 2 "nationalities" to hinder your groups.

That's why I made the comment that I wondered why so many AAR's are having these options available to the Japanese without concessions for the Allies. Then you see some whining about how hard it is to get air superiority. Duh. Japan's not flying Nates. They're flying Tojo's or Tony's. And, the Allies are flying the same obsolete Dutch, Brit, Aussie and US planes because that's half of what's being produced or there are no nationality options available.

[bradfordkay]

"Yeah, but by 43, assuming you saved all the squadrons, those Dutch groups are still worthless. They can't upgrade to any other plane. PDU on or off, those Dutch groups are worthless after mid-42."

The only way you can save those squadrons is to keep possession of one or more of the NEI airbases. All those squadrons are permanently restricted to KNIL command. I don't expect to have any ofter mid-42 or so...

[Bradley7735]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

"Yeah, but by 43, assuming you saved all the squadrons, those Dutch groups are still worthless. They can't upgrade to any other plane. PDU on or off, those Dutch groups are worthless after mid-42."

The only way you can save those squadrons is to keep possession of one or more of the NEI airbases. All those squadrons are permanently restricted to KNIL command. I don't expect to have any ofter mid-42 or so...

You can change a base in Australia to ABDA command and fly all of them there. It costs about 300 PP to do so.

It takes a little luck as well as some thought to the escape path. But, saving obsolete groups is kind of silly. It reinforces the point, though.

[FatR]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

you don´t have to be a great Allied player to see and accept that the Japanese in the game still are far from what the Japanese were in real life

I don't see this, and don't accept this (because this is not true). Judging by AARs Japanese are somewhat weaker that they should be to keep the war going as long as it did in RL, or just about right, hard to tell precisely, because we can withness examples of unsuccesful Japanese play right now, but the examples of success (if any) mostly won't be available until late in the war.

ORIGINAL: castor troy
Fact is that one carrier engagement can completely drain the Allied´s SBD replacement for something like a year for example while taking down 250 IJAAF bombers mostly will only result in "click" production doubled, will have replaced my losses (including pilots of course) in two months.

No, it cannot. Even in the worst-case of major (exceeding historical SBD losses in carrier battles for the entire 1942) one-sided plane losses without any permanent impact on the enemy, USN can recover near-instantly in Autumn 1942, unless you seriously wasted your pools before. Again, go look at Q-Ball vs. Cuttlefish AARs, that's just what happened in their game once.

As about your claim for IJN losses replacement, it cannot be true, because the original KB cadre is literally irreplaceable, whether you take two months or two years. Not even against AI will Japan ever again field the concentration of uberpilots that is present in KB airgroups on December 7th. You'll never ever be able to train pilots to such levels. You'll never be able to pull out of frontline units hundreds of veterans with EXP 70+ and additionally train them in two-three skills. You'll need at least half a year to train the best possible approximation to the original KB Kate pilot as well. And the combined size of units that can do such training is far below the combined size of carrier torpedo squadrons, so you'll need to withdraw some carriers from battlelines for retraining (DB and fighter pilot take less time to drill, thankfully).

ORIGINAL: castor troy
And no matter what great Allied player you are, that won´t change the fact that a Hurricane flies lower than a Tojo and will therefore lose against a Tojo sweep in pretty horrible kill ratios, but that´s another issue.

No, they won't, because they don't. Stop projecting the results of gamey deliberate hunting of leaking CAP in your game to the air model in general. And in fact, after playing with a HR which pretty much ensures that CAP will always be flying higher than the sweep, I'm starting to doubt if the altitude bonus is that significant in the first place.

ORIGINAL: castor troy
If you say Hurricanes are the kings of air combat I wonder if you are a god like Allied player or the worst Japanese player. Want to see the kill rates of my Lightnings on 39000ft sweeps? They must be the king´s father then...

Lightnings inflict disproportional casualties picking off small groups, but manage only about 1:1 against tough CAP. Of course, the very fact that I'm using Lightnings almost exclusively for attack means that the Allied airforce is in superior position. My Hurricanes generally have a better position to fight, either over their airfield or a friendly hex.

[castor troy]

have you got an AAR with combat reports running? If so, I will take a close look. If not, further discussing is senseless because without any ongoing combat reports there is no evidence for anything you are saying. I´ve been posting crs since day one and all but a couple of days that got lost are in my AAR. And there´s lot of evidence. I don´t agree to any of your statements except you can´t replace 80 exp KB pilots but that´s something you don´t have to. Indefinite numbers of skill 70 pilots work just fine.

[Smeulders]

ORIGINAL: FatR
And in fact, after playing with a HR which pretty much ensures that CAP will always be flying higher than the sweep, I'm starting to doubt if the altitude bonus is that significant in the first place.

What HR is that ? Could also be that the altitude bonus for CAP cancels out the sweep bonus to an extent, so as to even up the odds a bit.

[Feinder]

So, if japanese production can get out of hand (esp with PDU on), why not have a house rule that says something like,

"If PDUs are on, Japan can only ~convert~ production of factories, but not ~expand~ production."

I'm very interested in the thread, because I'd certainly like to play a full campaign at some point. But neither do wish to get into late '43 only to "discover" some of the fundamental flaws in the game. I'd rather y'all discover them for me, have several hotly debated threads on the forums, then some form of reasonable house rules surface, so I can enjoy my game when it finally time for it...

:^)

-F-

[Puhis]

On average Japan produced something like 900 planes/month, total 42000 combat/recon/patrol planes. Why not make this HR? Japanese player can produce whatever he likes, but only 900-1000 planes per month.